Birthdays and Bicycles

At the 1891 opening of the Outer Circle Railway the Daily Telegraph noted with equal pessimism and eloquence: "As a goods line it is out of the question: as a passenger it accommodates only the inmates of the Kew Asylum and they travel very little... it might do for a tourist line, but people are not yet educated up to prowling about the outskirts of obscure suburbs."  It's probably not surprising then that within two years the line had closed due to lack of patronage. The good thing about the demise of the Outer Circle Railway was that eventually it was developed into the Outer Circle Anniversary Trail which ran very conveniently right past our current front door. 

Roger had a birthday, being of course not a day over 21 and certainly not on the downhill run to 60.

Being the birthday boy, he got to choose what he did for the day.  After some consultation with the BoM and being of a mind to prowl about the outskirts of obscure suburbs (I'm not sure that the residents of Kew would agree with that description), we headed off along the Anniversary Trail toward the city.

Let's go! 

The trail gave us the happy illusion of riding in the country, surrounded by greenery and regularly popping out into civilisation with a reliable supply of coffee shops, public toilets, and drinking fountains at which to refill our water bottles.

Typical hi-vis worker, lolling about at a cafe reading the paper.  "He's one of my people!" cried Roger happily.

Into the (not) wild.

 

The path was used by a myriad of walkers, joggers, and cyclists, including some who had tied an impressive number of bags to their rig.

All those trees were very nice of course, but an engineer's birthday wouldn't be complete without a good dose of concrete and infrastructure.  Thankfully we found this in the form of some very tall street lighting on the M1...

I've got to take a picture of these!

There we are, then.

... and a jolly nice old bridge.  This was the Chandler Highway Bridge which gave us great views of the Yarra in moderate flood.

After indulging in a suitable amount of bridge appreciation we tootled off upstream, only to be stymied by said flood.  Much discussion ensued: should we forge on through the mud thereby condemning ourselves to shoe and bicycle cleaning in the future, or should we turn around and head downstream until a suitable cafe called us for lunch?  

Cyclists more dedicated than us just pushed through the mud and carried on.

 

The more we dithered the more large grey mosquitoes came to lunch with us, so the birthday boy made the call and off we went in search of suitable lunch venues.  This was the right decision because it led us firstly to the best bridge yet...

Ooh la la!

He's happy.

...and the bridge led us to the Fairfield Tea Rooms and Boathouse where we lunched on the verandah and appreciated the views of the swollen Yarra and the Best Bridge Yet.

There's the Best Bridge.

Due to the treacherous currents of the flooded Yarra, boating was not permitted from the Boat House. All the boats were tied together and corralled below us, spinning slowly in the back eddies and providing hang-out spots for seagulls and ducks.

It's a boat party.

There's worse ways to spend a Thursday and a birthday.

It was all uphill on the way home so we cheated and caught the train.  No sooner had we walked in the door than BD turned up to continue the celebrations by taking the birthday boy out for a high-class dinner.

Top notch.

Really, they were both just in it for dessert at Lickt next door.

 And that was the end of a very satisfying day.